Archive for October, 2012

Readers of this blog know that my primary focus is the convergence of high-tech and high-touch that I believe IS the future of wealth management. I think Balance Financial gets this better than most fintech firms, and that is why I am proud to serve on their Advisory Board. Read on…

A great article caught our eye the other day over at http://www.Finextra.com. It was an interview with Sungard Investment Systems President Daniel Bardini. Sungard works with financial services firms around the country providing various technology solutions to private banking institutions.

According to Bardini, the future is about “engaging clients in new ways, more interactive.” Further, “traditionally banks invested in back office. This is more and more a commodity. Focus is moving to front end tools that support relationship managers on interactions with clients.”

And finally, “Relationship managers struggle to get a 360 degree view of clients. Need new ways of engaging clients.”

We could not agree more. The core investments made in Private Banking and wealth management over the last several years…

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I was recently interviewed by BAI Banking Strategies on the evolving use of social media in banking and wealth management.

Here is an excerpt from the article, which was published yesterday:

Nicols, a former executive with Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, agrees that social media can warn financial institutions of potential problems. “You ought to be happy when a client is complaining because you’re learning something,” he says.

Young customers are more likely to be influenced by what their peers do than older customers, which, in turn, highlights the potential for social media, Nicols says. He cited the example of a customer who had a problem with his bank that was successfully resolved, which led to an enthusiastic recommendation of the bank to other consumers in social media. “There are whole businesses built on peer recommendations, such as Yelp,” which posts online customer reviews of businesses, from restaurants to bank branches, Nicols says.

Banks also have to use the right channels to respond to customer inquiries, Nicols adds, citing an occasion when a CEO of a technology company tweeted the bank that he wanted to talk to someone about a mortgage. The marketing department, which received the tweet and didn’t know how to respond, sent an email to Nicols, who immediately tweeted the executive. “Customers are giving you signals about how they want to interact and you need to pick up on those signals – or lose business,” he says.